The History of Art in Hungary [antikvár]

Apart from the scanty information gathered from a few authentic written sources, we are indebted to philologists and archaeologists for what we know about the origin and prehistory of the Hungarian people. Their inferences are not unanimous in every respect, and their analyses and explanations have given rise to numerous debates, with many a link in the chain of connections still missing. Yet one thing is beyond doubt: the Magyar people belonged to the Ugric branch of the Finno-Ugric ethnic group of the Uralic family. Their country of origin was on the western slopes of the Ural Mountains and on the plain of the Kama River, where the forefathers of the Magyars lived together with the other Ugric peoples from prehistoric times up to the sixth or fifth century B.C., when they were separated by the inroads of a group of people, known today only from archaeological finds (of the Ananino Culture), who attacked the region of the Kama. To escape their onslaught a part of the Ugric people (the Ugrians of the Ob) moved to the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains, whereas the Magyars migrated southward, to the coastal region of the Black Sea. The exact route and the duration of the migration are unknown; according to the testimony of the Hungarian language, this period lasted some one thousand years and brought the Hungarian people into the neighbourhood of Turkic peoples, who tilled the soil and pursued animal husbandry. The acquaintance with agriculture, and mainly with animal husbandry, changed the hunting-and-fishing economy of the Hungarians, resulting in a transformation of the structure of their society. Their clan system based by and large on equal rights and on kinship was superseded by a tribal organization based upon accumulated riches (livestock). This change started a